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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Today is the "Holy evening".

The day is ritualized.The highlight is the evening or early evening. During the day usually we do not eat (or better: we try not to eat) that much as we know that we will get more than enough for the big evening dinner: We have every year Sauerkraut with potatoes and sausages (for those who eat meat, I don't). Sauerkraut and potatoes with ketchup is fine for me. I really love it. This is the main course, of course there is a soup in the beginning. I could convince my mother that I do not need a soup, but my father wants a soup ("Leberklöschensuppe" like every year). He wants the classic order. And afterwards there is a dessert, later cookies and oranges are offered with glow wine. Nobody will go to bed with an empty stomach this evening.

What follows is the gift giving. By then it is about 7 or 8 p.m. The gifts are already in the living room. We usually personally hand over the present to the person the present is for. "Merry Christmas", we wish. Unwrapping follows. While everybody is unwrapping the own presents, everybody is also observing the others to see if the own given present was a good choice and to see what else was in the gift boxes.Often a conversation about the gifts follow: What was a good idea, which present was wrapped most beautifully, and so on.When my grandma was still among us, she used to return the present if she didn't like it. "You like it better than me", she used to say then. We all had fun about so much directness.

Then focus is again the cookies and the hot red wine or what else is on the table in the living room. When nobody has new impulses for the conversation, it's very likely that someone wants to watch TV. We don't sing or recite poems, we let others sing.

(And I promise next year I will focus again more on writing about yoga. The word "plan" is perhaps a bit better than promise as it is not so strong. Plans are made to see the difference to reality, but promises must be kept.)